-The Hindu Rs. 35,399.40 crore spent from ₹78,521.24 crore collected, Minister tells Lok Sabha in written reply Over half the amount collected in the form of a cess on Construction Projects to fund welfare schemes for workers has not been utilised so far, the Labour and Employment Ministry informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The cess, collected under the Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Cess Act, 1996, is supposed to be used...

-The Hindu In a State where hydro power projects, dams and construction activities are increasing, landslides too are becoming common. Vikas Vasudeva reports on the benefits of the projects and the concerns of the people in a fragile Himalayan region It was a relatively warm monsoon afternoon on July 25 when Arjun Devi, 65, was sitting outside her house, legs stretched out. Her house is located in the middle of an apple...

The recently released quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data broadly confirms the dip in employment and jobs during the countrywide lockdown period, followed by a certain degree of recovery in the post-lockdown months last year as have been indicated by various survey-based studies and research papers. The quarterly bulletin on PLFS provides data on key employment and unemployment indicators i.e. Unemployment Rate (UR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Labour...

-Down to Earth The need of the hour is to put halt large hydel-power projects in the Himalayas. Can small hydropower plants offer a sustainable solution? Hydropower is a renewable and non-polluting source of energy. India has an economically exploitable and viable hydropower potential, which is estimated to be about 84,000 megawatt at 60 per cent load factor. It has an installed capacity of 148,701 MW, according to the National Hydroelectric Power...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...